Nubia

Nubia is the name applied to a 1,000-mile stretch of the Nile Valley lying between Aswan and Khartoum in the southern part of the modern nation of Egypt and the northern part of Sudan. For housands of years it has served as a corridor for trade between tropical Africa and the Mediterranean Sea, and it was richly endowed with natural resources such as gold, copper, and semiprecious stones. It is the only continuously inhabited territory connecting sub-Saharan Africa with North Africa.

History
Nubia's location and natural wealth esplain the early rise of a civilization with a complex political organization, social stratification, metallurgy, monumental building, and writing. The central geographic feature of Nubia, as of Egypt, is the Nile River. This part of the Nile flows through a landscape of rocky desert, grassland, and fertile plain. Nubia enters the historical record around 2,300 BC in Old Kingdom Egyptian accounts of trade missions to southern lands. Egyptian officials stationed in Aswan led donkey caravans south in search of gold, incense, ebony, ivory, slaves, and exotic animals from tropical Africa. During Middle Kingdom Egypt (2040-1640 BC), Egypt adopted a more aggressive stance toward Nubia. The Egyptians erected a string of mud-brick forts on the islands and riverbanks south of the Second Cataract, and they protected southern Egypt against Nubians and nomadic raiders from the desert.

The Egyptians gave the name of Kush to the kingdom whose capital was located at Kerma, one of the earliest urbanized centers in tropical Africa. Beginning around 1750 BC the kings of Kush built fortification walls and monumental structures of mud brick. The Kushites believed in an afterlife in which attendants and possessions would be useful, so dozens or even hundreds of servants and wives were sacfriced for burial with the king. Kushite craftsmen were skilled in metallurgy, whether for weapons or jewelry, and produced high-quality pottery.

During the expansionist New Kingdom Egypt (1532-1070 BC), the Egyptians penetrated more deeply into Nubia. They destroyed Kush and its capital and extended their frontier to the Fourth Cataract. A high-ranking Egyptian official called "Overseer of Southern Lands" or "King's Son of Kush" ruled nubia from Napata near Gebel Barkal, the "Holy Mountain", believed to be the home of a local god. Egypt supplied gold to the states of the Middle East from Nubia, and the Egyptians had to ward off attacks from desert nomads while mining gold. Five hundred years of Egyptian domination in Nubia left many marks, such as the imposition of Egyptian culture on the native population. Children from elite families were brought up in the Egyptian court to prevent their families from making rash decisions, and Nubians built towns on the Egyptian model.